The Protracted Rohingya Refugee Situation in Bangladesh: Towards Reducing Precarity and Increasing Responsibility Sharing

Within a global refugee regime tainted by a culture of responsibility shifting as opposed to the principle of responsibility sharing under the UN Global Compact on Refugees, over a million Rohingya people are currently living in Bangladesh, one of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) from the Global South. With a limited ‘right to have rights’, the status of the Rohingya people in Bangladesh is ‘precarious’. This precarity is further exacerbated by limited employment opportunities, which allow them to serve as ‘volunteers’ and informally access the labour market. These opportunities provide some scope to earn money in amounts that are barely enough to sustain themselves but, in the end, far from sufficient to make Rohingya refugees financially empowered or self-reliant. This Policy Brief reveals the precarious lives of the Rohingya people in Bangladesh by shedding light on their status and right to work.